Director Roger Nygard traveled the world asking theologians, scientists, skeptics, and everyday people 85 tough questions to try to understand The Nature of Existence! Now that he’s asked the experts, it’s YOUR TURN! To offer your own insights on today’s question, “How does meditation work?“, Leave a Reply below!
Ever look at a water faucet stream? At low pressure the water runs clear and straight and glassy. Turn up the pressure and a point is reached where the water stream suddenly turns turbulent. And vice versa. Dynamic systems 101.
The mind is a dynamic system. Meditation affects it and can make it change character abruptly. Two main ways to turn the faucet: concentration and relaxation. Both reduce turbulence and either can lead to a sudden state-transformation. Kensho anyone? Seeing God anyone?
Actually there is a third way, but it is neither concentration nor relaxation. It is intoxication. And after trying to answer all these questions, that’s the shortcut route I recommend.
A little more on this topic. If you are training for a marathon, you know that it is not enough to do training runs from time to time: say one today and another next week. and another four days after that.
To train the body, the cardiovascular engine, the energy metabolism system, the muscles and ligaments, requires progressive load and continuity. Our bodies respond well to judicious training, but it must be sustained and it must be continuous.
Meditation is exactly the same, no different. You must not meditate on weekends only -thinking that alone will suffice to transform you in any significant way. You have to have a daily commitment and increase the “load” as you are able to, at your own pace. For the state-change to occur, the meditation must be well along in the training curve. The mind responds well to training, but like the body, will quickly relapse into a pre-training state if you don’t keep up the work long enough to render some lasting effects. Sesshins, three-year retreats, vow retreats are all recognitions of this.
I’ve never been able to stop my brain from thinking thoughts long enough to find out.
you stay still and don’t think of much. it’s like instant relaxing and soon drowsyness